


Truth or Dare

by RemyCampbell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: All Human AU, Alternate Universe - College/University, Castiel is oblivious, Childhood Friends, Dean/Cas Tropefest, I feel like Sir Garth should get his own spinoff, I love that mean Naomi is a tag, M/M, Mean Naomi (Supernatural), Midwinter Tropefest 2018, Party Games, Sam means well, These dudes need to get their act together, Truth or Dare, dean is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 15:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14216553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemyCampbell/pseuds/RemyCampbell
Summary: Dean Winchester has always been the most important person in Castiel Novak’s life. But now a stupid party game has turned everything on its head and Cas is sure there’s no way he can ever recover. This was a terrible mistake.





	Truth or Dare

**Hello, y’all! Here is my submission for the 2018 Dean/Cas Tropefest. My tropes are: All human AU, College AU, Friends to romance, Childhood friends, and Misunderstandings. (Oooh, I packed a bunch in there!!)**

**Also, I’m sorry-not-sorry for the Scoobynatural reference...**

**~Remy**  
**——————————————————-**

This was a mistake. A terrible mistake.

Castiel knew he should never have agreed to this. Going to a party? What was he thinking? Of course it would be a disaster. He had only agreed because he wanted to spend time with Sam. It had been months since he had seen the younger boy, so he didn’t want to miss a moment. Even when Sam had asked to go to his first college party.

And so he went to the small party hosted by Dean’s friend Benny and it was loud and crowded and there was too much alcohol involved and they were playing stupid party games and now Castiel was going to lose Dean forever. Because of a stupid college party.

———————————————-

Castiel was absolutely terrified on his first day of school at Lawrence Elementary. He was shy at the best of times, and the difficulties in his family that had driven them to Lawrence in the first place only made it worse. Adding to that the fact that he was starting school in the middle of the year, the nine year old was utterly overwhelmed.

He sat in the back of the room, trying desperately to ignore the frequent flutters of motion as other students turned quickly to stare at him. By lunch time, he was exhausted, and he snuck off to a vacant corner of the cafeteria in an attempt to enjoy his peanut butter and jelly in peace.

Of course, nothing that day would work out as he had hoped, and within several minutes, a student he vaguely recognized from his class sat across from him. The boy had sandy hair and freckles, with a wide toothy grin that seemed incongruous with his Black Sabbath t-shirt and bomber jacket. Castiel tried desperately to avoid eye contact, but the boy launched into conversation anyway.

“Hey, you’re the new kid in my class, right?”

Castiel nodded.

“Awesome. I’m Dean. Sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

Castiel shrugged. His name was hard, and people usually just called him things like “loser” anyway.

“Dude,” the boy named Dean prompted. “That’s your cue to tell me.”

“Oh,” Castiel blushed. This was one of the reasons he rarely tried to talk with his peers. He always seemed to get it wrong. “My name is Castiel.”

“Castiel? That’s different. I like it,” Dean declared. “But it’s kind of long. Is it cool if I just call you Cas instead?”

“Okay,” Castiel replied. He wasn’t sure why this boy seemed so eager to talk to him, but for some reason he couldn’t explain to himself, he was sure that he didn’t want Dean to stop.

“I hope it’s okay I came and sat here,” Dean continued. “You looked lonely, though, and I know that the first day at a new school can be rough, especially when it’s the middle of the year.”

“You’ve switched schools before?” Castiel asked. If Dean, who seemed warm and friendly and not at all lost, had gone through this successfully, maybe there was hope for him too.  
“A few times, actually. But Sammy and I are here in Lawrence forever, which is great.”

“Sammy?”

“My little brother,” Dean explained. “He’s only five, but he’s a really cool kid. You’ll like him.” Castiel felt warmth spread through him at Dean’s words. Dean was expecting Castiel to meet his little brother, which meant he obviously planned on spending more time with him. “Anyway, why did you switch schools?”

Castiel blushed at that. His mother, Naomi, had told him not to talk about why they had to move. She told him that it was embarrassing and she didn’t want them to get a bad reputation in their new town. But Dean had asked and he didn’t want to lie to his new friend. If he did tell him thought, maybe Dean wouldn’t like him anymore and then he’d be back to being alone in this new town and-

“Cas? Hey, Cas!” Dean’s warm voice pushed through Castiel’s anxiety. “I’m sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to upset you. I know it can be hard to talk about sometimes, and you don’t have to, but I get it, y’know? I had to move a lot because of my family too.”

“Why?” If Dean could talk about why he had to move, maybe Castiel could too, and maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as his mother said.

“Well, my mom died when Sammy was a baby, and my dad- I guess sometimes things are too messed up even for grown ups to handle. So we moved around a lot and my dad would work different jobs and then he’d mess it up and we’d have to leave again. But my uncle Bobby- he’s not really my uncle but we call him that- well, he didn’t like how much we moved. Said that wasn’t any way for me and Sammy to live, so now we live with him. And we get to stay here forever!”

“That’s great,” Castiel told Dean, feeling relief wash over him as Dean talked about his situation with ease. “Your uncle sounds like a nice man. I’m glad you get to stay in Lawrence forever.”

“Me too!” For the first time, Dean’s eager happiness faded from his face. “But, you’re staying forever too, right? You’re not going to be like me and Sammy moving around all the time, are you?”

“No, we’re staying,” Castiel assured his new friend. “My dad was really nice but he was always sad. He used to talk to me about art and how making art is important, but my mom would tell him it was a waste of time. So one day he just left. He said he had to go find the book he’s meant to write, but I don’t really know what that means. Anyway, my mom said that everyone in town looked at us funny after that, so we moved here to start over. She told me not to talk about it, but you told me why you moved, so I thought it was fair to tell you.”

“Oh.” Dean was quiet for a long moment, before responding, his cheerful attitude firmly back in place. “Well I think your dad was right that art is important. And my Uncle Bobby says that talking about stuff is important, and that one of the reasons my dad is so sad is because he never talks. You can always talk to me, okay Cas? We’re friends now, and friends can always talk to each other.”

“Okay,” Castiel replied. Even though he had only known Dean for less than an hour, he was sure that Dean meant it when he said he’d always be there for him. He was equally sure that he would do all that he could to always be there for Dean.

“Awesome! Hey, after school today, do you want to come play at my house?”

———————————————-

From that first day on, they were inseparable. They spoke in a language of gestures and meaningful looks, of half spoken phrases and obscure references. The bond grew stronger as they grew older, and by the time they reached high school, people spoke of them almost exclusively as “Dean and Cas”, never one without the other.

Castiel realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life by Dean’s side when he was eleven years old.

He was twelve when he realized that couples who paired off for life were typically involved sexually and when the two people were of the same gender, that was called being gay and some people thought that was wrong. Unfortunately, that lesson came by way of his mother ranting about queer representation in the media, and how it was against God’s will.

At sixteen, Dean Winchester was the heartthrob of the school, all leather jacket and rock and roll, with a quick temper but a kind heart. Castiel told himself that he had no right to feel heartbroken when Dean dated Cassie or Rhonda or Lisa or Carmen or a few of the boys on the football team. He was still Dean’s best friend and Dean had said on multiple occasions that he always would be. Castiel tried to tell himself that he wasn’t interested in sex, so he shouldn’t feel jealous that Dean was clearly having it. A lot. With both men and women who were decidedly not Castiel. It still hurt.

Dean’s romantic escapades did, however, take away some of the pressure that Castiel was feeling at home. Naomi had been making suspicious comments for years about the apparent closeness between the two boys, their comfort with sharing physical closeness, and the way Castiel showed no obvious interest in girls. But with Dean dating half the girls in school, Naomi could simply write her son off as socially inept, which she clearly found frustrating but much less distasteful than him being gay. She seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that Dean wasn’t exactly picky about gender.

When it came time for them to go to college, then, there were no objections raised when they announced that they were going together. They had both been accepted into the University of Kansas, Dean in the engineering program and Castiel in environmental science. They moved into the same dorm room, decorating it together with an eclectic mix of band posters and nature photography of bees that was quintessentially “them”.

It was perfect, and more than Castiel had ever imagined. Their relationship remained as close as ever, but for the first time, Castiel felt as though he wasn’t the odd man out, with only Dean to link him to the rest of society. He liked Benny, and Charlie was even more Castiel’s friend than she was Dean’s.

As Dean worked to find ways to build better machines, Castiel studied ways to help the planet. He wondered at times if they could work together on projects relating to green energy; they were such a perfect team that they could surely make a difference in the field.

In the meantime, every day was a new adventure, from LARPing to parties to spending evenings together in their dorm. Castiel loved the way college had allowed them to start building their own lives, while still maintaining their incredible friendship.

———————————————-

Now here they were, a decade after their first meeting, more than half of their lives, and Castiel was about to lose the most important piece of his life because of a ridiculous game.

They were in college, for crap’s sake. Why were they even playing truth or dare? That was a thing that tween girls did at slumber parties, wasn’t it? Apparently not in Benny’s book.

It was a surprisingly fun game. Nearly everyone at the party had gone LARPing at least once. Benny was the highest ranking knight of their realm and Charlie, the Queen of Moondor, had been chatting animatedly with Sam for the past fifteen minutes. (Dean pretended that he thought LARP was silly, but Castiel knew that he loved being a part of their kingdom.) The prompts, therefore, centered for the most part around Moondor.

Truth: Have you ever kissed someone from the Outworld Kingdom?

Dare: Reenact that time Sir Garth got in a bar fight with a Druid.

Castiel sat on the standard issue pleather sofa beside Dean, watching with faintly tipsy amusement as Sam performed his best interpretation of a dragon. In hindsight, he supposed he should have expected Sam to call on him. The younger Winchester didn’t know many of the people at the party and both brothers had always taken care to make sure Castiel felt included.

“Truth,” he told Sam, expecting to be forced to recount some hilarious misadventure from their youth. There were a lot of those, embarrassing in all the warm fuzzy ways that make them fun to recount.

Sam answered casually, as if his prompt wasn’t earth-shattering, as if he hadn’t just stripped Castiel naked in front of everyone, as if the world would keep on turning after this moment. “When did you first know you were in love with Dean?”

Castiel felt his mouth open. He thought he made some sort of unintelligible sound. All he knew was that he couldn’t look at Dean. If he looked at Dean, he would die. A muffled noise that he recognized as Dean’s voice tried to push through the cacophony of alarm bells in his head, but he refused to interpret the words. If he heard the disappointment, the disgust, the horror, he was sure he wouldn’t survive.

He ran.

Of course it was Dean who found him. Who knew that if Castiel wanted a place to hide from the world, he would go to the last study room in the west corridor of the fourth floor of the library. He didn’t say anything at first, just sat on the floor beside him, pretending he didn’t see the other boy drying tears with his sleeve.

It was Castiel who eventually broke the silence. “Can you please just yell at me and get it over with, Dean?” He hated how pathetic he sounded, but decided that when your life gets torn apart, you’re allowed to lose composure.

“I’m not going to yell at you!” Dean snapped indignantly. “Hell, none of this is your fault, Cas. I yelled at Sammy, though. If he wants to embarrass his big brother because he’s an annoying bitch, whatever, but he shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”

Castiel remained silent, not knowing what to say to that.

“You wanna hear the crazy thing, though?” Dean continued. His tone was wistful and sad, which was confusing, but Castiel decided he preferred it over the anger he was expecting. “Sammy didn’t even know what he did wrong. I hauled him into Benny’s bedroom to chew him out and he was so confused. Didn’t know why you’d left or why I was upset. Apparently he thought we were together.” Castiel felt a sick, cold wave wash over him, but Dean just chuckled ruefully and kept talking. “Thought that I was just doing the whole never talking about my feelings thing, or that I was afraid Naomi might find out if we were too open about it. So he was really just trying to ask his brother’s boyfriend some dumb sappy question to make us both blush.”

Well, that made sense, at least. Castiel had never thought Sam to be the type to be deliberately hurtful.

“Still doesn’t help us any, though,” Dean continued, voicing Castiel’s own bitter thoughts. “So I guess that’s that. No more dancing around it, huh?”

“I suppose not,” Castiel agreed softly. “I’m very sorry, Dean. I’ve always known that our feelings for each other were vastly different, so I’ve tried my best not to call attention to it. But I understand how uncomfortable this must for you.”

“Freaking humiliating,” Dean interjected. Castiel felt himself flinch at the words. It was bad enough for one’s love to be unwanted, but for it to be embarrassing to its recipient...

“Anyway, I’m going to go to the RA tomorrow and ask if I can get a different room tomorrow, if that’s cool with you?”

No. No that wasn’t cool with Castiel. He had more than proven himself capable of concealing his affections. And Dean was his anchor, his best friend. To share a space with him had been one of the most exciting things about college. Losing that would be heartbreaking. But of course, Castiel understood. He expected it, from the moment Sam asked the question. So he merely nodded silently.

“Thanks, man. I knew you’d get it. It’d just be too uncomfortable now, you know? Sleeping and getting changed and crap? People need to be able to have a space to themselves where they can go without feeling like they’re being stared at and sexualized.”

“I don’t do that!” Castiel snapped, switching from quiet embarrassment to righteous anger in seconds. And it was true. Castiel was sure that if- in some insane parallel universe- Dean were to initiate sexual activity, he would participate and enjoy it, but that was never what he wanted from Dean. He wanted exactly what they had, with the added understanding that they belonged to each other. He wanted the companionship that they’d already formed cemented into a partnership. He wanted an expansion of the way they sometimes leaned against each other when watching movies, wanted it to grow into hand holding and back rubs and perhaps an occasional kiss. When he’d explained all of that to Charlie, she had discussec with him the different degrees of asexuality, and what she said made a lot of sense. But he didn’t need to put any sort of a label on what it was he wanted from Dean. He just wanted Dean.

Now, the man in question was getting all the wrong ideas and Castiel couldn’t let that stand. If Dean hated him for the truth, then so be it. But Castiel would not have Dean thinking that his (former?) best friend was a pervert. “Dean, I have NEVER stared at you! Never sexualized you or done anything to indicate I want anything from you at all!”

“Yeah, I know, Cas. That’s the point. I get it, okay? You’re not into me. I’ve always known that and I promise I will always respect it. But I don’t want you to just have to take my word for it. I don’t want you to be afraid that I’m creeping on you or some shit, so I’m just going to move out.”

“Wait, what?” Castiel asked ineloquently, suddenly feeling utterly lost.

“What what?” Dean retorted. Castiel saw the angry glint of his eyes and knew what was coming. The famous Dean Winchester angry bluster, used to push people away when they got too close to his feelings. He hadn’t used that tactic on Castiel since they were thirteen. “You heard me, Cas. That’s about as gross as it gets, right? To find out your best friend has a crush on you? Well I ain’t the guy who’s gonna stick around and just make that feeling worse for you. Hey, it’s cool, man. I’m outta your hair. No making Cas uncomfortable. Just... know that I didn’t mean anything bad by it all, okay?”

Dean stood to leave, but Castiel stuck out a hand to stop him. He had gone from feeling crushed to utterly confused. Dean’s words didn’t make sense, but he didn’t seem angry, so Castiel felt that he had to at least try to make sense of the situation. “I don’t understand, Dean. I feel like we’re having two different conversations.”

“How the hell could we be? My idiot brother saw how fucking head over heels with you I am- always have been- and got the dumb idea in his head that we were a couple. So he asked you about it in front of everyone and now they all know. And now you know. You know that all this time, I’ve been feeling things for you that I’m not allowed to feel and that makes me a piece of crap friend and you’re going to hate me forever. So that’s it. The most important person in my life probably thinks I’m a fucking creep. That’s the conversation we’re having, Cas.”

“It’s not the one I’m having,” Castiel answered faintly. At his words, all the fight drained out of Dean. He sank onto his knees before his best friend, noticing perhaps for the first time how anxious and upset Castiel was.

“Cas? Hey, man, talk to me. What conversation did you think we were having?”

“The one about you finding out that I’m in love with you,” Castiel breathed, feeling impossibly worse after saying it aloud. “Where you find out that from the moment you said hello to me on my first day at Lawrence Elementary, all I’ve ever wanted was to spend my life with you. And you’re Dean Winchester. You’re free and wild and you like hot girls and tough guys and fast cars. And I’m the awkward little nerd who you’ve tried so hard to be nice to and who you’ve made a place in your life for and I’m so selfish that it’s not enough and I want more. I’m sorry, Dean. I wasn’t going to let you find out. Ever. I could keep it quiet, and I was okay with that. But now you know and it changes everything. I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t look up at Dean. He was still trying to figure out what on earth Dean was talking about, but he knew that this wouldn’t play out well for him and he couldn’t bear to see the negative emotions playing across Dean’s face.

But when the tense silence between them finally shattered, it was with laughter. Castiel looked up, shocked, to find Dean sprawled flat on his back, laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. “You- you thought that I- Cas, holy crap, we’re idiots. Damn, this has gotta be the stupidest two people have ever been.”

“Dean, what are you talking about?” Castiel asked- begged? shrieked? He wasn’t sure. He felt that he was inching close to hysteria and wondered vaguely if Dean had already beaten him there.

At Castiel’s frantic tone, Dean sat up instantly and stopped laughing. Blue eyes met green as Dean grabbed Castiel by his forearms, holding them both steady. “I’m fucking in love with you, Castiel. And I guess you feel the same. And we’re both so freaking obvious about it that Sammy thought we were dating.”

“You- You what? Since when? Dean, please don’t say this just because you feel sorry for me.”

“No, of course not, Cas. I would never do that. And since when? I don’t know, man. Always? I guess one of the first times I really registered it in my brain was when I went on my first date with a girl- remember Cassie?- And I kissed her and when I went home that night, I just wondered what it would be like if I kissed you.”

“Oh,” breathed Castiel, because he didn’t know what else to say. Apparently his silence made Dean worried, because he gave Castiel a little shake and spoke again.

“Cas, c’mon. Give me something. Please tell me you’re not mad.”

“Of course I’m not. Dean, I could never be mad at you. But... this is insane.”

“You’re telling me! Dude, I didn’t think that you felt like that about anyone, but especially not me. And this is in no way what I thought tonight was going to look like. But, hey Cas?”

“Yes Dean?”

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Will you go out with me?”

And just like that, the tension melted away. The air between them melted back into the warm safety and absolute understanding that defined their connection, but now was mixed with a sparkle of excitement and new possibilities. Castiel knew there would be several long conversations ahead, about his sexual boundaries and the parameters of their new relationship, and explaining all of this to Charlie, but he also knew that they would work it out, as they always did.

“Yes, Dean. I would love to go out with you.”

“Awesome,” Dean breathed, before closing the gap between them and pressing a soft kiss to Castiel’s lips. For a beautiful but brief moment, they got lost in their closeness, in enjoying how everything between them was shifting into something even more profound than before.

Eventually, Castiel pulled back, gloriously comfortable but knowing that they couldn’t spend the night in this study room. “Where did you leave Sam?”

“I dropped him off back in our room before coming to look for you.”

“Well, we should probably head back. Don’t want to leave your brother alone after he came all this way to see you. Besides,” he continued, seeing the disappointed look on Dean’s face, “we should probably thank him.”

Dean laughed at that, pulling Castiel to his feet and heading out of the room, keeping their hands intertwined. “Yeah, I guess we should. Got our heads out of our asses, didn’t he? But just because this worked out for us doesn’t mean he’s off the hook. Just wait ‘til the next time we see Jess.”

“Velma costume photos?” Cas asked, leaning into his best friend- well, boyfriend- as they walked back to their dorm.

“Damn right, Velma costume photos!”

—————————-

**Hope you all enjoyed! Also, thank you to Dean Riordain for his technological assistance. (Y’all should go read his Tropefest too.)**


End file.
